elder care - All posts tagged elder care

Even though we repeat over and over that Medicare – the social insurance program for people over 65 –does not cover long-term care, in fact it does. And the amounts paid are not trivial.

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Medicare could pick up your family’s nursing-home tab.

Medicare does limit its coverage of nursing home care to restricted circumstances. It covers care provided in a skilled nursing care facility, but only after a hospital stay of at least three days, and only for people with a daily need for skilled care. A substantial, $152 daily co-pay is required after 20 days, and Medicare coverage ends entirely after 100 days. In contrast, Medicaid provides means-tested coverage of the cost of care necessitated by functional limitations.

Here’s a question for students of family psychology and behavior: When it comes to parents and their adult children, what topic is nearly as much of a taboo as the one about when the grandchildren will arrive?

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That’s real Champagne Mom and Dad are drinking.

If money comes to mind, you’re on the right track.

According to Fidelity Investments, parents and their adult children are increasingly at odds over when to have that awkward “family finance talk.” You know – that’s the conversation where adult children ask their parents how much money they have and what their parents’ plans are for old age, when the parents may need help with basic activities of daily living, such as dressing and bathing. As if that’s not awkward enough, there’s also the topic of inheritance, and who can expect to get what.

Public-sector unions got dinged but dodged a bullet today when the Supreme Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn in a case that centered on home health aides in Illinois.

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Most Americans want to age in place.

In a 5 to 4 vote, the court ruled that the plaintiffs–home health aides compensated by the state’s Medicaid program–need not be forced to pay dues to a union they don’t want to join. The aides had argued that such paying dues would amount to a violation of their First Amendment rights, since by paying they’d be supporting an organization whose positions they might not agree with.

Watchers of daytime cable TV might recall ads featuring septugenarians with six-pack abs. These are often from companies selling HGH, or human growth hormone. A story in the Wall Street Journal this week, by Shirley S. Wang, reports rising sales of these hormones, which some tout for their anti-aging properties.

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You may be better off without HGH.

The global market for human growth hormone, or HGH, will reach an estimated $4.7 billion by 2018, up from $3.5 billion in 2011, according to Global Industry Analysts, a market research firm, the Journal reports. HGH is thought to tighten skin, increase muscle tone and energy, and confer other benefits.

We all know that the perils of being a couch potato–or a desk jockey–include an expanding waistline and back pain. But recent research suggests that too much sitting is linked to major disability after age 60.

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He would do well to find a more active hobby.

The study, by researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was the first to show sedentary behavior is its own risk factor for disability, independent of lack of exercise. In other words, it suggests moderate exercise isn’t going to ameliorate the negative effects of too much sedentary time. It also implies that the benefits of an active retirement extend beyond the satisfaction of checking items off your bucket list.

Home-health aides who care for the elderly and disabled belong to one of the nation’s fastest-growing job categories—and do some of the toughest jobs. But an attempt by the state of Illinois to boost pay for health aides has been caught up in a wider legal battle over public employees’ right to opt out of union membership. That fight has now reached the Supreme Court , which heard arguments yesterday in the case, Harris v. Quinn. (Read a transcript of the arguments here.)

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Higher wages and union dues may go hand-in-hand.

The case has more to do with the politics of labor than with the economics of caring for seniors. In brief: Opponents of the Illinois law and others like it object that they force public-sector employees to pay union dues that could be used to support political causes that the employees don’t agree with—a potential violation of their First Amendment rights. But some of the details of the case illustrate the legal and financial gray area where many home-health workers operate.

“Women already have a hard enough time making ends meet, earning only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men,” says NWLC vice president and general counsel Emily Martin. “Women women simply can’t afford to pay 20% to 40% more than men for the same long-term care insurance.”

Researchers have long sought ways to stop the relentless and devastating progression of Alzheimer’s disease. While a few prescription medications exist, none has proved to be a breakthrough. A study published recently in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests certain patients might benefit from a more humble source of treatment.

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There’s no breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug yet.

On the New York Times’ New Old Age blog, Pam Belluck recently wrote about the findings, which suggested that antioxidant-rich vitamin E prolongs some Alzheimer’s patients’ ability to perform daily tasks. The study analyzed 561 mostly male participants, who had mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and were patients at Veterans Affairs medical centers. It found that those who took a high dose of vitamin E over a period of two years experienced a six-month slowdown in the progression of certain symptoms..

The report, by three U.S.-based doctors, notes that the raw numbers of people suffering from dementia is bound to continue to grow significantly, since adults over age 80—what they call the “old old” population—are on track to steadily increase as a share of the global and U.S. population. But in reviewing five different studies that compare recent dementia rates with those observed in earlier decades, the researchers note that each shows a clear correlation between broader, society-wide improvements in heart health and declines in the share of older people with dementia symptoms

In many families, Thanksgiving is one of the few occasions– if not the only one – when multiple generations gather for extended time in each other’s company. And it’s also the time some financial do-gooders (including, ahem, your Encore correspondents) encourage families to take advantage of that togetherness and have “The Talk” about family finances. You’ve got some downtime with Mom, Dad and your siblings: Why not broach the subject of whether the family has enough money set aside for long-term care, or whether your parents still feel sharp enough to manage their own portfolio?

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Football talk? Perfect. Life-insurance talk? Less so..

To this conventional wisdom, one columnist at Next Avenue is saying: Give me (and my family) a break. In a piece this week on PBS’s boomer-oriented website, personal-finance columnist and self-identified Sandwich Generation member Jeff Brown decries the idea of weighing down a family gathering with such a heavy agenda. “It seems inevitable that raising sensitive topics in a large group will bruise someone’s feelings,” he writes. “Those who need the help don’t want to be treated as losers. Those who can offer it don’t want to be taken advantage of. Some might feel others are ganging up on them. Happy holidays?”

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Encore looks at the changing nature of retirement, from new rules and guidelines for financial security to the shifting identities, needs and priorities of people saving for and living in retirement. Our lead blogger is editor Matthew Heimer, and frequent contributors include editor Amy Hoak, writer Catey Hill, and MarketWatch columnists Elizabeth O’Brien, Robert Powell and Andrea Coombes. Encore also features regular commentary from The Wall Street Journal retirement columnists Glenn Ruffenach and Anne Tergesen and the Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Alicia H. Munnell.